Why We Resist It...How To Embrace It

About Jen Mueller

I'm a social psychologist who loves stories. While getting my PhD, I started to collect peoples' stories about creativity. Overwhelmingly, people say they feel joy, pride, and exhilaration towards their creative ideas. But I also discovered a dark side - most people have a story about how someone else rejected their creative idea. So I started to wonder, could people love creative ideas - but also hate them? Now, a business school professor, my work shows that people - even experts - can hide their dislike of creative ideas. My work explores the possibility that embracing a creative idea is not a rational process of knowing the answer, but a psychological process of managing our own and others feelings. My work aims to provide people with tools to disrupt their own and others resistance to the creative ideas that would otherwise improve the quality of their lives and make the world a better place.

KERA / Think

The most successful CEOs and executives distance themselves from competitors through innovative thinking. The reality, though, is that many business leaders are prone to sticking to the well-worn path rather than taking a risk.